


In these canyon walls

by lighthouse_at_sea



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Autistic Julian Bashir, Crash Landing, Fluff and Angst, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23573362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lighthouse_at_sea/pseuds/lighthouse_at_sea
Summary: A crash landing leaves Garak stranded and injured in the desert of a pre-warp society. A 'promising' one, if the Vulcans were to be believed.Some planet called Earth.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38





	In these canyon walls

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea in my head and went for it. But It's definitely a wip right now with no set update date.

Garak hit the control panel in frustration. All his work, spiraling down just as he was.

If he were a researcher, he might have been intrigued at the presence of an ion storm so close to a G2V star. But he wasn't and this was not a time for what-ifs. The control panel fizzed and the external sensor display flickered into darkness. That wasn't good, as he had already lost the viewscreen.

"Don't you dare," he hissed, darting down to start yanking at the underpanels to expose the circuity.

He wiped a trickle of sweat off his brow. As only a fraction of Cardassian biology was mammalian, he really did not want to know how hot it had become in the cabin for him to start perspiring.

The computerized voice was music to his ears as he brushed himself free from the mess of wires.

"Computer. Time to impact."

"Three point one seconds."

Garak's eyes widened. "Ah. That might be a problem."

* * *

Julian left the clinic in a good mood, hands fiddling with the drawstring on his scrubs. He rolled a string into a little spiral before letting it go and starting again.

Since he had managed to get a job as a medical assistant, he had relished in the comparative freedom it offered, and one of the perks was taking long walks just because he could. At home, he felt awkward asking to leave the house, even just to walk around. His parents would always question him, or worse, decide to accompany him.

He was able to start saving money, little by little. He'd get his own house, far away. No matter how much he was going to miss Cairo, it was for the best.

The clinic was small, at the edge of the sprawling city. Within ten minutes, he was reaching chain link fences that blocked off the last rundown neighborhood from the desert beyond.

He looked past the fence. Sand, mostly. And dark. He twisted around to pull his phone from his backpack. 8:12. His parents wouldn't call and demand where he was until midnight.

Hopping the fence wasn't something he did frequently. He knew how dangerous it could be to get lost within the desert. Far too often, patients would come in, encrusted with sand, tanned and seizing from heat and dehydration.

If he went out far enough, he'd reach the sandstone canyons that jutted through the dunes. That far out, you could see the stars. He had only made it there once, and he hadn't wanted to ever turn back.

But he promised himself he wouldn't walk that far this time. Just a half hour out, then he'd turn around.

A flare of light yanked his head up, hands gripping steel so he wouldn't topple backward.

It definitely wasn't a shooting star. Whatever it was, it was on fire.

He felt the impact. It shuttered the metal fence underneath him and echoed in his eardrums, deep and resonating.

He flung himself off the fence and took off at a run.

He stumbled in the sand. The stack of smoke was easy enough to follow, but before long it might be blown away completely.

Several breaks had him frustrated, but he couldn't afford to get too worn out. He only had one full water bottle and the signal out here was spotty at best. If he called his parents saying he got lost in the desert, he could kiss his job goodbye. But the smoke looked so close. He could make it.

* * *

He reached the sandstone structures just as the smoke became too faint to follow. The moon and stars provided enough light to see where he was going, bouncing off smooth, solid walls.

Cautiously, he made his way in.

Almost immediately, there were different paths he could take, and just as many he'd have to choose from going back out. He bit at his tongue and looked around. A few scattered boulders and lots of sand. He could try to draw shapes on the ground, but they could blow away. Julian pulled off his backpack and riffled inside. He grinned when his hand clasped around a stray permanent marker.

He marked a small X on the canyon wall near eye level. He felt a little bad about it. But, he reasoned, he could come back another time scrub it off.

Some backtracking was required as he wove his way farther and farther inside the canyon, scribbling out each X that led to a dead end. He tried not to become frustrated. He was sure this was where it landed! Not that he knew what he was looking for. A meteor probably. But then what? He'd look at it, maybe take a picture, then turn around? He could email the University. They cared about this kind of stuff. Maybe they already knew about it and would come for it in the morning.

A foul scent suddenly reached his nose. He coughed reflexively, bringing in his elbow to cover his mouth. It was nothing like the scent of blood or organs or vomit. That, he was used to. This was like burning oil, or maybe rubber. Something inorganic.

The canyon bended once more.

* * *

The rock around it was smashed to pieces, and the ship had gouged a deep trench into the ground. It was big, the size of one of those long trucks. It was also in bad shape. Julian was no engineer, but there was a haze of smoke in the air and curls of metal at his feet as he stepped closer. It wasn't a cool night to begin with, but the surrounding area had to be about five degrees hotter.

Julian spared a second to think if this was a good idea. His heart was racing and he clenched onto his backpack straps like his life depended on it. But first contact? That was something humanity had been dreaming of since they figured out Earth wasn't the center of the universe. At least, that's what he assumed. To him, it was an obvious fact that aliens existed. The Earth was a speck in the galaxy and the galaxy was a speck in the universe. Even if habitable planets were one in a billion, the sheer size of the universe made it impossible for him to doubt for an instant that they were alone.

The ship seemed to get bigger as he got closer until he was right up against it. With only a slight tremor, he reached out, and placed a hand on the hot metal. Very hot. He yanked it away.

If something was alive in there, they could be burning up. Or suffering blunt force trauma or spinal fractures or smoke inhalation. His eyes widened. He didn't have much in his backpack. Some gauze, bandages, medical tape, non-prescription headache medicine.

Moving quicker now, he jogged around the ship, scanning for an entrance. But how to get in even if he found one?

The first problem was solved as he came to the opposite side. It seemed to be an entryway, the type that moved upward like a garage door. He pulled out his phone, shining its flashlight all around. He discovered a control panel set into the wall next to the hatch. It had a dark screen and a series of thick, unmarked buttons underneath.

There was no way he could hope to figure out what combinations of buttons to press. And what if when he tried, it alerted the occupants?

But they could need medical help.

Throwing caution to the wind, he jabbed at a button. Then another and another. No alarms, but no opening doors either.

"Hello?" he yelled to the sky. To the lizards and spiders and, if he was lucky, whoever was inside.

"Please, if someone's there, open the door! I just want to help!"

He shivered. The first aliens, and they were all dead.

"Please!"

It wasn't as if aliens would know Arabic.

Another volley of poking at buttons.

"Hello?"

The researchers would come, perform autopsies.

"Sssshut up."

Julian's blood froze and he whipped around, pressing himself flat against the sealed hatch.

His phone was still in his hand, and he aimed it toward the voice. Humanoid, two arms and two legs. But the face was all wrong. Ridges hooded their eyes, their neck was thick and scaled. Julian let out a high-pitched whine.

The being took a step forward and Julian pushed back even more into the hot metal.

But something was wrong. Their next step was stalled, almost a stagger. Injured, walking on adrenaline alone if he had to take a guess.

"Are you hurt? You spoke my language, right? I can help. Well, I can look. I won't do anything to hurt you," he spouted out. And he wouldn't, he would do everything in his power to help, if there _was_ anything he could do, that is. For all he knew, Earth's atmosphere was toxic to them, or they were bleeding internally and would be dead come morning.

"Move away from my ship, and I might not kill you."

Julian did as told, shuffling away from the door and giving the alien a wide berth. They circled each other until they mirrored each other's original positions.

The staggering had gotten worse. Julian could now hear labored breaths and watched as they pawed at the control panel. Then banged at it when it obviously did not respond to their commands.

A cough racked through their body. Julian grimaced when they slumped against the wall, but lurched forward when they went limp, sliding to the ground.

Painful death at the hands of an alien or not, he couldn't just stand there.

He was at the alien's side in a second, hand at their wrist. Surely they had a heartbeat, right? And with happy relief, he found it, pulsing and strong. A hand over the mouth and nose were met with puffs of air. He systematically patted them down. Ribs, fractured, quite likely broken. Back at the face, he peeled open one eye then the next, shining his phone, watching the pupils contract.

They were quite modestly dressed, with only their face and hands exposed, so he really hoped they would forgive him for removing their shirt and bandaging their ribs.

They let out a hiss at Julian as he worked to slide the shirt back on. "I'm sorry," he stated simply, "but you became unconscious. I couldn't just leave you."

"Water?" The word was barely a breath, and Julian could have sworn their mouth moved differently than what he had heard.

"Yes! I have some. It's not much but please, drink it all."

He dug out the partial water bottle and, after unscrewing the lid, brought it to the alien's hand.

The alien looked between him and the bottle with distrustful eyes, and then kept them trained solely on him as they took the bottle into their own grasp. They sniffed at it, then brought it to their mouth for a small sip. Then another.

Luckily, they did not gulp it down, which could easily have caused them to throw up. Instead, they steadily emptied the bottle, not wasting a drop.

* * *

Garak hated this. The weakness of asking for water. The kindness of the stranger for giving him some. This planet was like Cardassia in one aspect. Endless stretches of desert. At least that was how it had seemed as he stumbled out of the wreckage and into fresh air. To offer water, especially when he obviously had so little himself. It was a selflessness not frequently found on his homeworld.

Garak stared up at the creature, haloed in moonlight. A Human. That’s what species dominated Earth, right? Earth. The one the Vulcans had been watching for some time now. Oh, they would send him to rot in a Federaji prison if they ever found out he disturbed their little petri dish.

Not that he had expected to be found, or to come back to fried circuity, and he certainly hadn't expected being injured enough to not be able to take down a single, squishy human. Although he had yet to put in much effort, he was shaking from holding up a thin, plastic water pouch. It was safe to say that snapping the boy's neck was not in the foreseeable future.

"Are you feeling any pain?"

His chest ached. He could feel the stretch of primitive bandages around his wounds. If only he had had enough presence of mind to grab a medkit before rushing out of the confining compartment. But he had woken up stifling hot and short of breath, head dizzy and aching. A beam of metal was over him and he had panicked like a wild animal. He was out of the cabin and forty paces away from the ship before he had come to his senses. And look where it had gotten him. But… he did still have one thing at his disposal.

"Just a little. A crash like that would have anyone shaken up. But I see you've done a wonderful job on my ribs. Are you a doctor?"

The boy smiled shyly. Though similar in stature to a Vulcan, the human's mouth and hands and eyes betrayed his race. Humans, it seemed, were _expressive_.

"A medical assistant. But I want to become a doctor."

"That's wonderful. I'm sure you'll become a fantastic doctor. What is your name, might I ask?"

"Julian Bashir."

"Hello, Bashir. My name is Garak."

"What planet do you come from?" Bashir asked, leaning forward above Garak's face. Garak kept it open and polite.

"I'm sorry but my name is all you'll be getting. Now, as you've been so kind to me, I am in your gratitude and I will put this simply. Leave. Do not come back, and do not tell _anyone_ what you have seen here tonight."

His voice was light, but he could tell that Bashir understood the danger in his words. The human frowned and pulled back. "Your ship is broken."

"I can fix it."

"You're not well."

"I have medical supplies inside my ship. I will be alright."

"But - "

" _Go_."

"…Okay."

The human stood up, then went over to his pack. He dug around and pulled out a handful of items.

"These are bandages, and this is headache medicine. I do not know your physiology, but I hope they will help. It was… nice to meet you."

"You as well."

Bashir set down the supplies by Garak's prostrate form, and then he walked away.

Garak stared up at the sky and sighed. For some reason, he didn't quite believe that the boy would let things be.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it!!! <3


End file.
